I thought I would share some details on my one professional experience with sexual harrassment, to explain some of my thinking and questions about the Foley massacre taking place in Congress.
More below...
Six years ago, I was working as a supervisor in a call center for the technical support department for a large ISP.
I had between 25 and 30 people reporting to me on any given day.
The work environment was casual and laid back. People were allowed to bring beer to work. People sometimes smoked pot in the parking deck outside. People definitely smoked pot at parties after work, etc.
After I'd been doing this gig for a while, an employee who worked in another department in another building gradually started coming over and talking to employees in my building. She would be huggy and whatever.
There were two times that she came into my cube and started rubbing my shoulders. I asked her to stop this both times.
Several weeks later, I was speaking with two employees in my cube (which was the size of a small football field), and she entered it and started rubbing my shoulders in front of them. I tensed up, let them know that I needed to finish up some business and they should go home, and asked her to leave.
A few minutes after she left, I called her supervisor in the other building. I stated that she was doing this, I'd asked her to stop twice before, and that I would like it if he asked her to stop this because I felt like it undermined my authority in front of my employees.
So I go home. Dinner and booze and parties, oh my! (Tammie was much more fun five years ago!)
I come back to work the next morning. My boss is sitting in my cube. She tells me not to talk to anyone, not to log into my workstation or anything else, just to come with her.
We walk a couple of blocks and cross the street to go to the coroporate headquarters. She takes me into a conference room.
In this room are sitting the suprevisor I called the day before. All three of the managers for his department. The evening shift manager for my department. Both HR ladies for the company. And someone from the legal department.
They spent the next hour or two grilling me about every contact I had ever had with this chick. They asked me about dates, what happened, when it happened, what I said, who was around, had I ever said anything to anyone about her, had anyone ever said anything to me about her, had I ever overheard anything being said, etc.
All of these people are taking notes and writing down everything I say the whole time, they're going back and forth through the timeline to make sure I'm keeping the same story, etc.
This crap went on for about two hours.
They told me to get out and go on about my business for the day, and they would be in touch if they needed me.
By this point, I'm about so scared I'm pissing my pants.
They were cold and extremely impersonal and professional as hell (keep in mind some of these people I've partied with).
About an hour later, I get the first phone call. Through the rest of the day, they call me and tell me to send in employees that I had mentioned as being around, etc.
I think I'm going to get fired, etc, I think I did something wrong, and I'm like WTF?
The next day, I get called into HR and I'm thinking "Oh fuck".
So I go to HR, they tell me that they decided to terminate this chick's employment and I'm never to discuss it with anyone but HR again on pain of having my balls cut off.
That is my experience with sexual harrassment.
And this is at a company where the carpet was duct taped to the floor, hadn't been cleaned in five years, and everyone partied together after work.
All of this colors my view of what's going on with Foley and the house leadership.
If this is the way they cracked down on that kind of crap at such a company, I'm thinking people in Congress would actually have their shit together at least as well.
I have some serious questions about this issue.
I'd love to know who knew what, and when, and what was said.
If Hastert "handled" the matter, then there's a paper trail proving exactly that.
You don't have these sorts of meetings, like the one reportedly occuring with someone from the Clerk's office and Foley, without some kind of paper trail.
Who was told?
When were they told?
What were they told?
Who saw the emails?
Who talked to Foley?
When did they talk to Foley?
Why was there no investigation when he showed up drunk at the Page dorm?
What documents exist corroborating any of this?
I'm extremly skeptical that anything was done.
Anyway, just wanted to share some info on why I think the way I do about all this.
Cross-posted on TrekBBS with some minor changes, mainly the questions